We Who Remain
by jones2000
Summary: Alternate Universe. Donna Noble had the Doctor in her head. She knew that there was going to be no way he would let her keep the knowledge she had gained, even if it didn't kill her. And so the temp from Chiswick did what she does best. She improvised.
1. Chapter 1

**Another story that's been a long time coming, that my sis finally convinced me to start uploading. As my favourite modern companion, I believe that Donna deserved more of a send-off than she got, so...**

 **Needless to say, completely AU from about two thirds the way through Journey's End.**

* * *

 _"You weren't there in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born. But if the Timelock's broken, then everything's coming through. Not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-have-been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. The War turned into hell. – The Doctor_

MANY YEARS AGO

THE GATES OF ELYSIUM

The star system was the last line of defence between Gallifrey and the Daleks, and Elysium was falling.

Explosions buffeted the complex and rock rained down from the ceiling. Expensive pieces of equipment were torn free from their housing and exploded in showers of sparks.

He sprinted through the complex, checking life pods and shepherding stragglers to the escape ports. They were losing their planet, they had no need to lose their lives too. Gallifrey had dragged them into a war they had no part in and had all but assured their doom.

He slammed the doors open, storming into the room beyond.

"Get to the evacuation ports. Can't you hear the alarms?" He demanded. "Move it, people!"

The Elysium people who recognised him and the authority he carried immediately leapt to their feet, thankful that someone had countermanded their orders. The others just stared at him coldly, angry that one of the natives had interrupted their suicidal scheming.

Suicidal for the people of Elysium, that is.

"Belay that." The lead Gallifreyan soldier overseeing the scientists snapped. "Back to work. The High Council of Gallifrey is relying on you to halt the advance of the Daleks here at the Gates."

His lip curled as he eyed up the great golden Gallifreyan warrior. "Our perimeter has been breached. It's only a matter of time, now."

"You will keep working. This opportunity may never present itself again. We will stop the Daleks at the Gates."

He wondered whether the soldier had been told it so many times that he just finally believed it to be true. There was an old man behind the soldier, wrapped up in leather. He caught the old man's eye, his old friend, and the man gave an apologetic shake of his head. He'd tried.

Eyes flinty, he stood nose to nose with the Gallifreyan soldier. "Elysium is not Gaillfrey's to give away. Has not enough of my brothers and sisters died for the glory of the Time Lord?"

The soldier's face twitched, like he itched to put this mouthy upstart in his place. "The work will continue."

His face folded into a sneer. "And Gallifrey will fight to the last Child of Elysium." He indicated the scientists with a balled fist. "Go!"

"The future of the universe is at stake. You do not have the authority-!"

He turned back, eyes flashing. "And what good is the universe if there's no one left to _live_ in it?" He snapped. "You Time Lords, I have been listening to you talk and talk and _talk_ and not actually do anything for _months_ now. Elysium is _lost_. The Dalek arrival isn't imminent, it has _already_ _happened_. The Nightmare Child is inching forward with every day. We have _lost._ "

He spun on his heel, striding away. The next moment he was aware of the old man catching up to him.

"The last of the life pods are gone."

"I am aware. Unlike your fellows, my priority was getting my people to safety first."

"Let me give you a lift. My ship is not far."

The two of them emerged into the crumbling corridor.

 _BOOM._

The next instant the whole end of the corridor where they had just been standing broke away in a shower of dust and rock. The Time Lord froze, staring, as the first Dalek swept in through the opening, followed by another, and another.

"YOU WILL REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE!"

He grabbed the Time Lord's shoulder, spinning him back up the corridor just as he brought to bear the massive gun that was slung across his back.

"Captain!" His old friend shouted.

"Get out of here, Doctor." He brought the gun to his shoulder.

"My friend…"

"Get out of here!" He snarled. "You make all this death worth something! You do that for me! For all of us!"

The Doctor took one last fleeting look at him, and then was gone, sprinting down the corridor. He had mere moments to get to his TARDIS, and the captain was going to give him as much time as he could.

The captain lined up the shot as the Dalek foot soldiers came down the hall. "No more." He breathed. It seemed fitting that he would go out like this. The last casualty of a war that had never had anything to do with his planet in the first place.

"No _more_."

* * *

He should have known that simple death for the likes of him would have been too easy. The Daleks were smart. They knew he was a key figure in the Gates of Elysium resistance, and they knew about his partnership with the Time Lord known as the Doctor.

He had been trained to resist torture, and the Daleks knew this, so they handed him off onto their famed interrogators, sadists of the highest order, the Skaro Degradations.

They took him to a Dalek moon base not far from the irradiated wreckage of Skaro. The captain knew the place. The complex was a known processing farm for the Daleks. If the Gates of Elysium initiative had succeeded, it would have been the fleet's next target. He knew that when the Emperor had taken all the information he wanted, he would be processed into one of the mindless drones that had so decimated his home of Elysium.

Still, he could have been in the clutches of the Nightmare Child instead.

He fought the whole way there, not that the Degradations noticed. His weapons were taken and he was stripped and shoved into a small cell. Starved and sleep-deprived. And the captain knew that it was only the beginning.

They asked him questions about the resistance, about the forces of Gallifrey, but he would not speak.

They stripped chunks of flesh from his body and left him to bleed into the filthy floor before asking him again.

He would not speak.

They took his insides apart before putting him back together wrong before asking him again.

But still he would not speak.

That was the day the Degradations dragged him to the processing plant.

His arms and legs were the first to go, cutting and slicing and pulping, looking for that one viable cell suitable for the conversion process. There was so much blood, there was too much blood. The captain was inundated with it, his insides on his outsides.

He screamed, and the Skaro Degradations gloried in his pain.

 _So this is how it ends, not with a bang but a whimper._

Dimly he was aware of an alarm wailing somewhere.

"SECURITY BREACH. SECURITY BREACH. ALL STATIONS RETURN FIRE."

The massive steel door exploded inwards in a shower of burning shrapnel. He lay there drowning in his own blood as the world dissolved into fire, screaming, and smoke.

After what seemed like forever, he heard a voice.

"Get those cages open! Get these people out of here!"

A face was suddenly hanging over the captain, soot-blackened and bloody.

"We've got a live one here! Hurry up, I don't know for how much longer!"

* * *

PRESENT DAY

DOCTOR'S TARDIS

"-we've got the Torchwood rift looped around the TARDIS by Mr Smith, and we're gonna fly Planet Earth back home! Right then! Off we go!"

It was an amazing sensation, towing the planet behind them, knowing that for the first time in her life, _she_ had saved the day. Donna Noble stared around her, giddy with excitement and all the new knowledge rolling around in her head, all the things she was yet to see.

"Yeah!" Jack Harkness whooped, high-fiving Mickey Smith. Donna subtly prodded Sarah Jane out of the way so she could get in a hug on the hunky captain, and slip in a little PG-rated groping.

The Doctor was smiling around them all fondly, like a proud father. Donna elbowed him in the side. He just grinned at her.

The goodbyes were happy but still somewhat subdued. Everyone made promises to see each other again, knowing that they probably never would.

It was painful, and yet they all pretended that everything was going to be all right.

A very human thing.

The Doctor grabbed Captain Jack's wrist before the man could slip past him.

"Well, Doctor, I know you don't like goodbyes…"

The Doctor's expression didn't flicker. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?" Jack asked innocently.

"The Vortex Manipulator." The Doctor said. "Don't think I'm going to just let you waltz out of here with the power to just pop in wherever you want. The universe will never be safe again."

"I vote for a strip search," Donna put in. Jack flashed her a smile.

"Might be too much excitement for poor ol' Grandpa." He grinned.

The Doctor did not look amused.

"Aw, Dad." Jack rolled his eyes. "Spoilsport."

"Pragmatic. I _know_ you." He held out his hand, waiting. Jack sighed, and pushed up his sleeve, where the vortex manipulator should have been.

Should have been.

He frowned before checking his other wrist and patting down each pocket.

"That's… weird."

The Doctor's expression hardened. "What have you done?"

"Me? I haven't done a thing! It must have got pulled off during all the fun." He adopted a mournful expression. "Damn. It's probably halfway across the Medusa Cascade by now."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"So doubtful, Doctor." Jack smirked. "But you can pat me down if you want."

The Doctor just rolled his eyes. "If you miraculously find it and go about starting intergalactic wars, I'm going to find you."

"Promise?"

"Get going!"

After the farewell to Rose, the Doctor was staring moodily down at the console. Donna sighed internally. If he was going to continue to be this miserable, she was going to kill someone. Maybe him.

"I thought we could try the planet Felspoon." She started, trying to lighten the mood. "Just, coz, what a good name! Felspoon! Apparently it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move, can you imagine?"

He just looked at her.

"And how do you know that?"

"Coz it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine!"

"And how does that feel?"

His tone started suspicions swirling about her head, and she slipped her hand up her opposite wrist, palming Plan B.

"Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene!" She said. "Great big universe, packed into my brain. D'you know, you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hotbinding the fragment-links and superseding the binary-" The next moment it was like a skipping record. "-binary-binary-binary-" Donna managed to rip herself away from it, away from the Doctor's heartbroken expression. "I'm fine!" She snapped, pushing away.

She shook off her momentary lapse. "Nah, never mind Felspoon, d'you know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin! I bet he's great, Charlie Chaplin, shall we do that? Go and see Charlie Chaplin, shall we? Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Chester? Charlie Brown, no, he's fiction, friction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton – ow!"

A great lance of pain shot through her temple.

"Oh my God." Her eyes were wide and unseeing. _No! Not yet! I need time!_

"Do you know what's happening?" The Doctor asked quietly.

"Yeah." Donna's voice was just as quiet.

"There's never been a human – Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why."

"Because there can't be." She breathed. She knew. She could see it, right there in her mind.

He looked like he was going to start crying. _But you can fix it,_ Donna wanted to scream. _You can fix it. There's a way. There's always a way!_

"Look at me, Donna. Look at me."

Despite herself, Donna could feel her eyes well with tears, hope shattering. "I was going to be with you. Forever."

"I know."

"Rest of my life. Travelling. In the TARDIS. The DoctorDonna." Her face crumbled. "Oh, but I can't go back. Don't make me go back, Doctor, please,"

"Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I'm so sorry."

A bright spark of clarity pierced her addled brain, and suddenly Donna could see again. She knew what he was going to do, without a doubt. After all, she was in his head and knew him as well as he knew himself. She stared up at him as the Doctor cradled her head loosely between his hands.

"Doctor." She said softly. He paused, looking down at her.

"I'm sorry too."

And that was when she mashed the buttons on Captain Jack's stolen vortex manipulator.

As she vanished in tendrils of energy, the Doctor lunged for her.

She slipped through his fingers.

"Donna!"

 _I'm sorry, but I can't let you do this._

 _I'm sorry._

* * *

Her feet slammed into the ground, and she stumbled down to her knees, hands smacking against the ground to stop herself from smearing her nose across the floor.

The floor which was obviously _not_ the grating in the TARDIS.

Donna Noble climbed stiffly to her feet, her headache temporarily quelled.

"Blimey." She breathed.

All around her was like nothing she had ever seen. All manner of alien creatures were rushing around, talking, laughing. She did get some sideways glances for her sudden appearance but otherwise she was ignored as if she had been standing in the middle of London or New York.

There were three suns in the sky.

"Bloody _hell_."


	2. Chapter 2

Donna wandered through the rabbit-like warren, marvelling at the markets lining the maze. It was alarmingly human, selling material, knick knacks, flowers, and things that looked like vegetables but could very well be another set of aliens. If you took away the multiarmed golems and the sentient gelatinous blobs, she could have been back on Earth.

Suddenly the weight of what she had done finally hit her, and Donna's legs turned to water. She sunk down in a corner, head between her knees, breathing deeply.

 _Pull yourself together, you twit._

She gave herself a mental shake. _You are the most important person in the_ universe _. In all of_ reality _. You are part Time Lord and you just put down the resurrection of the deadliest creature in the universe._

 _Pull yourself together._

She stood and straightened her shirt, pulling on her mental armour. She was the best damn temp in all of Chiswick, and the galaxy would damn well know it.

 _I need a plan._

She looked down at the vortex manipulator on her wrist. Donna felt vaguely guilty for stealing the device from Jack, but she knew from the moment the Metacrisis was triggered that it would be only a matter of time before the Doctor was after her, to essentially pull out half of her brain.

The Doctor.

Never had she imagined that she would be one day running from her best friend.

But now Donna had reached her full potential, she was not about to let someone take all of that away from her. Anyone. She would find a way to treat the Metacrisis, cure it, be the first human ever to beat it. Even if it killed her.

And maybe it would.

 _Get off the street, get moving_ , a little voice spoke up in the back of her mind. _Don't make yourself a static target._ After a moment Donna realised that the little voice was her Time Lord mind, entirely more logical and survival-oriented than her Donna mind.

Briskly she strode down the footpath out of the rabbit warren and away from the markets, looking like she had somewhere to go.

And found herself standing on the edge of a raised circular platform overlooking a massive chrome and steel shining city.

"Blimey." She breathed again.

The vortex manipulator on her wrist beeped, and Donna opened the cover, staring at the little readout that was illuminated in front of her.

 _New Praxia,_ it said. Donna scrolled down. _Situated in the Cygnus constellation, Praxia is known for its wide variety of flora and fauna and its multicultural community._

"Multicultural." She mumbled. From where she was standing, Donna could see giant stick creatures conversing with small, long-armed aliens. "I'll buy that."

She looked up at the three suns. Donna had thought she was free before, but now she knew that what she had felt before travelling with the Doctor was only a taste of true freedom. Even with a headache and an avalanche of awkward memories flooding her mind, she knew she was who she was and who she was supposed to be.

Donna took a lungful of the brisk Praxia air, so foreign and yet so familiar, and smiled, completely at ease despite the constant throbbing of her head.

Someone slammed hard into her back, and Donna spun around, arms swinging.

"Oi! Watch it!"

"S-sorry. Sorry." The person had bounced off her back, eyes wide. Donna's expression softened as she saw under the mop of vibrant white hair and wide black eyes was a boy that might have been fourteen or fifteen.

The kid scrambled back, trying to get back to his feet.

"Whoa, easy, kid." Donna held out her hands, palms up. "Here, let me help you up-"

"I can do it! I mean, I can do it." He got quickly to his feet, his face flushed with exertion and embarrassment. He must have been running and looking back before he had collided with her.

She frowned. "You okay, kid?"

The youth just looked at her, and Donna vaguely wondered whether the TARDIS's translation circuit was wearing off.

"Perfectly fine." The voice was stiff and distant.

The kid looked fifteen, but Donna knew enough about alien life now to know that he could have been anything from a day old to two thousand years plus. He looked at her for a moment longer with those big dark eyes before looking away.

"My name's Donna. What about you?"

"It would be better for you to forget that you ever saw me." The kid said curtly, before brushing past her, striding quickly down the stairs that linked the elevated platforms.

 _Rude little bastard._ Donna stared after him. She had done enough of it over the last months to realise when someone was running from something. And this kid was going as fast as he could.

 _The amount of running is ridiculous._

Without conscious thought, her feet started moving in the direction the boy had taken.

 _Donna Noble, you are such a sucker._

* * *

With each layer down, the platforms seemed to degenerate into slums and long stretches of space and trash. It seemed that wherever she went, the majority of aliens were no different to humans, wasteful and disgusting.

Occasionally she caught glimpses of the white haired youth, but the sightings got further and further apart until it appeared that he was gone entirely.

"Huh."

Donna was standing between an overflowing bin and a boarded-up building. Something scurried behind her, and she spun, heart beating faster.

 _Snap out of it,_ she chided herself. _It's probably just a rat. Yeah. Knowing my luck, a space rat the size of a Doberman._

She took another cautious step forward, and that was when she heard the panicked shout.

Without thinking, she was off and running.

The white-haired youth had been forced to his knees in the muck by three creatures in black exoskeleton suits, his arms wrenched behind his back. Electricity danced up and down the creatures' drawn batons, and Donna's eyes widened.

"Move it. Let's get this little worm back to the nest." The lead creature snapped. He was toweringly tall, with an elegant grey snout. "Time to collect the bounty." He grabbed the teenager by the scruff of his neck, hauling him to his feet. "You've been missed, your Highness."

Donna drew in a breath.

And stepped out into the light, hands braced on her hips.

For a moment everyone was frozen in a bizarre tableau, the three policemen and the teenager staring at her.

"Is there a problem here, officers?" She asked pleasantly.

There was a moment of silence.

"Step off, Earther." Another of the policemen snarled. There were barnacles all over his face like the hull of a ship. But Donna had not gotten to where she was today by being a pushover.

"What did the kid do?"

"None of your business." Barnacle-face ground out. Grey-snout held out a hand for silence.

"This is police business and nothing of your concern." He said coldly, turning and soundly dismissing her. Donna's eyes narrowed. _No one_ walked away from Donna Noble.

"Hey, he's just a kid! This has to be police brutality or something!" Before she realised what she was doing, Donna reached out and grabbed Grey-snout's arm.

She realised her mistake the moment she made it.

 _Hell._

Grey-snout just looked at her, his gaze going from studiously disinterested to blazingly angry. Donna snatched her arm back in case he decided to bite it off.

"You _dare_ attack a law enforcement officer, Earther?" He asked in a deadly voice.

"What! Attack! You've got to be freaking kidding me!" _That's right, just keep digging your hole, you idiot._

A third policeman, with deep, burnished red skin took Donna firmly by the arm.

"Since you are so concerned about the boy, perhaps you should accompany us."

 _Damn._


	3. Chapter 3

All throughout her teenage years and well into adulthood her mother often said she would not be surprised in the least if Donna ended up in prison one day. It probably didn't do much to increase Sylvia's expectations of her daughter when Donna called the house to get bailed out after she and the girls got a little bit crazy at Opira's hens night.

But Donna would happily take the Chiswick drunk tank any day over the Praxia Maximum Security Re-education Institution.

She was walked down the corridor, a thin blanket in her arms. Donna had been stripped of her Earth clothes and given a pale blue jumpsuit. The officer that had taken her clothing had also taken the vortex manipulator. He had glanced at it, briefly, disinterestedly, before bundling all her stuff into a metal box.

 _If I find those cops, I'm going to kill them._

The warden stopped before a thick cell door. He placed his hand on the scanner and the door swooshed open.

Donna was pushed inside.

The cell was small and square, a toilet-looking device at the back wall. Against both side walls were flat, shapeless cots.

She took a further step into the room and stopped. In a corner of the cell, arms folded, and a foot resting back against the wall, was Donna's cellmate.

The woman (Donna guessed she was a woman, but you could never be too sure these days) was tall, with a heart-shaped face and long golden hair. She had alarmingly blue irises, but the whites of her eyes were a solid grey. Donna stared at the woman's face for a moment before her gaze slipped down to her arms. She looked like she could bench-press a car.

 _Me? Self-conscious? Never._

She looked away before dumping her blanket on the unmade cot and sat down.

 _Mum, if you could see me now._

After several interminable moments, Donna heard her cellmate move. She watched with cautious eyes as the other woman crossed the cell with all the lethal grace of a jungle cat.

"So you're the new girl."

 _Ah, crap._

Donna looked up. The voice was deep and husky and seriously sexy.

 _Don't let them see fear._

"S'pose so."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Earth?"

"Yes."

Her cellmate nodded like she knew it all along, leaning back against the wall. She sure seemed to do a lot of leaning. Finally Donna's curiosity got the better of her.

"How do you know?"

The woman smiled mockingly. "Because I can't think of anyone else from that sector foolish enough to tour Praxia without an armed escort. Everyone knows that their law enforcement are in business for themselves."

Her eyes narrowed. "Call me a masochist."

The woman's smile widened at Donna's tone.

"What are you in for?"

After a moment she answered. "I was helping some kid being banged around by the police."

The woman shook her head. "I have to say, you were certainly asking for something."

Okay, _that_ stung. Donna bristled. "What are _you_ in for?" She shot back.

The woman's expression didn't change. "I killed a senator."

Donna gave her a long, wary look, keeping her back straight against the wall. After several long, uncomfortable minutes, the woman smiled.

"You Earthers really are too easy." She chuckled.

"We tend to call ourselves Earth _lings,_ FYI."

"Tomato, Tom _ah_ to." She shrugged.

Donna's eyebrows instantly rose. "You know what tomatoes are?"

"Who do you think brought them to your planet in the first place?"

For the life of her, Donna couldn't tell whether she was kidding or not.

* * *

The woman had introduced herself as Lilith, which Donna had to admit suited her down to the ground with that husky voice and the ridiculously defined musculature that made Donna more than a little conscious of the extra layer of padding on her own butt. In a case of playground revenge, Donna couldn't help but start calling the uber-Amazon Lily.

Still, as the days passed, it was good to have someone to trot along behind as the old hand prisoners stared at the fresh meat. _Urgh._

The days passed, and there was no sign of the Doctor.

Or the white-haired kid that had got her into this mess in the first place. She had tried finding him among all the people jammed together like sardines, but those she asked assured her that she was the prison's newest intake.

 _Where did the boy go?_

"This is insane." Donna whispered. "What sort of place is this? There are kids in here!"

Lily shrugged a shoulder.

"It's the way Praxias has always run their government. For centuries they have locked up troublemakers and dissidents and any other threats to their power, while masquerading as a democratically elected parliament. As long as we aren't _out there_ , no one cares what happens _in here_."

Donna watched a child cross the mess floor, in the prison's blue jumpsuit. He was small and pale, with smoothed-back dark hair and sharp golden eyes.

"That's deplorable."

Lily looked up. Donna was beginning to wonder whether her eyebrow was permanently cocked. "And _your_ planet has centuries of _supposed_ civilisation doing the exact same thing."

"Hey, I never said we weren't hypocrites." Donna pulled apart the chunk of bread-like substance she had been given. "Is this edible?" For all she knew, she was supposed to use it to floss between her toes.

"What gives you the idea that we have the same digestive organs?"

Donna threw it back on the plate. "You know, you can just say 'no'."

"And miss that adorable look of confusion you get on your face?" Lily smirked and got up from the table as Donna flicked spoonfuls of watery soup at her.

"Where are you going?"

"You're not my mother."

Donna leaned back in her chair, staring at nothing. She would find that damn teenager, get back the vortex manipulator, and find a way to fix her head. Maybe not necessarily in that order.

She looked up. Lily was clear across the room now, and as Donna stared, she looked up at the second-level catwalk, at a man that stood there, in a grey warden's uniform. The man's eyes flickered to the boy Donna had spotted earlier, and he purposely folded his arms. Three fingers were held casually against his forearm.

Donna had run in enough alien armies by now to recognise it.

 _A signal._

She rose, thinking furiously. Was it possible that she had arrived in the middle of a prison break? Slowly she backed toward the wall. Donna had been in enough food fights to be able to recognise the calm before the storm, the last chance to back out.

 _Okay. This is weird._

The man in the warden's outfit turned on his heel and strode from the hall. The next moment Lily also strode away, in the opposite direction.

But the dark-haired boy was still standing in the centre of the mess hall, quietly observing.

If Donna hadn't have been watching, she would have missed what happened next. The next moment the kid stepped into the path of a massive tattooed prisoner, dropping to all fours and sending the massive man hurtling over his back, food tray and all. The boy sprang to his feet and darted out of reach as the flying food tray smashed back into the head of another prisoner.

No one even noticed that the boy had been there.

 _Very smooth, kid._

Everyone was quiet for a moment before the massive alien prisoner rose from his chair. He had a massive flat face and tiny little eyes, but when he opened his mouth, the toothy grin bisected his face.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The first alien steeled himself, looking up and audibly gulping. It would have been prime comic gold if not for the fact that Donna was stuck in the middle of it. "What's the matter? You look better covered in vomit!"

There was a massive whump as two giant bodies collided, sending food, tables and chairs scattering in all directions.

As the wardens moved in, the boy bolted, small enough that no one watched him go.

Except Donna.

"No you bloody don't." She growled, sprinting up the stairs to the uppermost platform, bursting out onto the level. The boy was nowhere to be seen. "Damn it!" Donna picked a direction and jogged down the catwalk.

The next moment she was swept clear off her feet and slammed into the wall, a muscled forearm against her throat, like steel. Donna gasped in surprise and pain and found herself staring into the green, green eyes of the warden Lily had been looking at earlier. The one whose signal had started it all.

The boy was peeking around his leg at the spectacle disinterestedly.

"Who the hell are you?" He snarled. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I don't know who _you_ think you are, but _no one_ gets to talk to me like that." Donna ground out.

And using all the whiles of her middle class upbringing, she kneed him in the junk as hard as she could.


	4. Chapter 4

The man crumpled, not as much as she would have liked, but still enough that his viselike grip on her windpipe loosened. She wriggled away, sorely tempted to kick him in the shins for good measure. Donna's mind whirled, debating whether the safer option was to just rejoin the fight downstairs. The pressure mounted in her head and she gasped, gripping her forehead. The more she thought, the greater the pain grew.

 _Then stop thinking! You never had a problem with that before!_

But she wasn't playing house with a Time Lord mind before.

Someone had grabbed her shoulders. "What do you think you are doing, Donna Noble?" Lily was shouting. "You are going to get yourself killed!"

Donna growled, slapping her hands away. "And what? I'm safer in prison?"

"Lock her up and throw away the key." The green-eyed warden snarled.

Donna sneered back. "Like another helping, mate?"

"Enough of this." The boy snapped. His young voice carried the weight of wisdom and responsibility that an eight year old shouldn't have. When Donna had been eight, she was trying to see whether a dead pigeon would fit through her neighbor's mail slot. The boy tapped his wrist in an universal sign for _move it._ "We are all working to a schedule. Lilith, take the girl and get the supplies. I will meet you in the hangar. Captain, we need that map."

Donna glanced at the green-eyed man, surprised. Captain?

"In three." The Captain said. "Or you will be left behind."

"Aye." Said the boy.

"Yes." Said Lily.

Donna shrugged.

* * *

Donna trailed behind Lily as the other woman tore through the locker room after punching in the access code the Captain had given her. Lily glanced at the number emblazoned on Donna's overalls before thrusting a metal box at her. She sighed with relief as she spotted the vortex manipulator and strapped it to her wrist, just realizing exactly how naked she had felt without it.

Lily ignored her as she emptied other boxes before moving to another locker.

She examined the touchscreen combination lock before drawing back her fist and slamming it into the screen, shattering it in half.

"Holey moley," Donna breathed. Lily opened the locker before reaching in and drawing out a massive grey gun.

"You shoot?"

"At basketball or pool?" Donna asked warily. The other woman huffed to herself before slinging the rifle over her shoulder. She reached back into the locker and withdrew two long, wickedly curving blades. Donna bit her hand.

"You know how to use those?"

Lily flicked her wrist, leveling the blade at her neck.

"Want to find out?"

Donna snorted.

Once they had their weapons, Lily hustled Donna from the room, running. Lilith loped along in front of her with all the grace of a gazelle, while Donna puffed along. _Time to start exercising._

The fight was still brawling below, and the next moment an alarm began wailing. Lily grimaced.

"They're onto us."

The hangar that Donna was led to was huge and stuffed with an amazing variety of spaceships, like it was a giant figurine collector's playpen. She stood there gawping before Lily grabbed her elbow.

The ship she was led to was black and sleek, but hardly elegant-looking. Scrambling up the open gangway and into the ship's hold, Lily led the way to the bridge.

The dark-haired boy was there, tapping away at the console. Donna spun around in a circle, trying to take in everything at once before staring out the plexiglass window that almost encircled the bridge, affording a 180 degree view.

As she wondered at the ship around her, the voices in her head were temporarily silenced.

"Now _this_ is a space ship," She breathed.

Lily ignored her. "Where is the Captain?"

The boy didn't look up from his work.

"He still has one to go."

"He's cutting it fine," She grumbled.

"He always cuts it fine." The boy looked up, and Donna found herself skewered by his sharp gaze. "So, girl, who are you?"

Donna mentally regrouped for a moment.

"Not that I've got a problem with being called 'girl', coz I've long ago powered past those years, but I _do_ have a name. Donna Noble. And I'm probably old enough to be yer mum."

The boy just smiled. "You would be surprised, Noble. What are you doing here?"

Donna shrugged. "Story of my life. Stuck my nose into the wrong thing."

The boy just cocked his head to the side, still with that strange little smile on his face. Donna scuffed her shoes.

"Oh, look, here he comes." Lily's voice was flat, but Donna could sense the relief. Donna stared down out of the bridge as the captain sprinted across the hangar.

There was a hitch in his stride that the Old Donna wouldn't have noticed. She blinked, and looked again, a feeling of familiarity stirring in her gut.

Familiarity originating from the Doctor's memories. The Doctor knew him, and something about it made him so sad.

A lance of pain spiked through her temple, and with a squeak she sank down into a chair.

"Donna?"

It was there in an instant. Burning. Searing. The roaring in her head was interminable, and Donna stared up at Lily through a sheen of tears.

"Help." She whispered. "Help-hel-he-"

It was starting again, and Donna wanted to scream. Lily's hands were clamped on her shoulders again, and Donna used the contact to try and centre herself.

Didn't work.

"Bay doors are open!" The Captain was breathless as he burst onto the bridge. " _Go_!"

It was only then that he noticed Donna. His eyes widened for a moment before his brow settled into lines of grim understanding.

"I don't know what's wrong with her!" Lily sounded astounded and frustrated that she had run into something that she couldn't conquer through brute force.

"I do." The captain elbowed Lily out of the way and took Donna's hands with a gentleness that belied the strength she had witnessed earlier. With a soft tug, he pulled her to her feet.

"Come with me."

Through the roaring of her mind, Donna was aware of the Captain leading her somewhere small and comfortable and silent. Her legs crumbled beneath her and she sank to the floor. The captain sat crosslegged opposite, reaching out to touch her temples like he was listening to the turmoil in her head. Tears rolled heedlessly down her cheeks, and Donna didn't bother to wipe them away.

The soft touch was so much like when the Doctor had cradled her head in his hands that Donna wanted to scream.

"You know what's going on." It wasn't a question.

"I am a human-Time Lord Metacrisis."

"You understand why." It wasn't a question.

Donna just stared unblinkingly at his face. Her world had narrowed to his green eyes and smooth voice. Her new Time Lord mind supplied the answer.

"Because my brain is too primitive to be able to process all the additional input."

"Yes and no." He said softly. "As an Earther, you _do_ use the entirety of your brain, just not all at once. But the Metacrisis has turned on the entirety of your brain, and you simply don't have the memory space and processing power to sort through the information overload that your brain is picking through. You're trying to process everything at once. If you don't find a way to contain the input, your brain will overload."

"So I'm going to die." It was one thing to know it in her head, but it was another entirely to hear someone else say it out loud.

"Not necessarily." The captain gave a small smile and in that moment Donna was struck by how handsome he was when he wasn't in a snit. Or maybe he got good looking the moment he mentioned that there might be a way to get around having a brain meltdown. Like an emotional placebo effect.

"How?" She whispered.

"We need to slow and cap the flow of information." His fingers drew small circles on her temples. The raging in her head dimmed slightly as she focused on his touch. "This is a little trick I learned. I want you to imaging yourself in a safe place."

Donna's eyes drifted closed. Suddenly she was back in the TARDIS, in the labyrinth of corridors and the random doors leading to nowhere.

"See the Time Lord. He's standing there, in front of you."

 _He was there, the Doctor, hands outstretched and waiting to obliterate her mind._

"That Time Lord is all the memories and knowledge that is tearing you apart. Take them and lock them behind a door."

 _Donna was staring at the Doctor's mournful face, her resolve shaking._

"The door is made of you, that stubbornness and ass-blasted bullheadedness. Your resolve. You are strong. You can win. You _will_ win.

"Now shut the door."

 _The Doctor just looked at her._

"You can love the Time Lord, but the Time Lord is killing you. Shut the door and lock it tight."

" _Sorry." Donna whispered, before closing the door in the Doctor's face._

"You don't need him to be who you are."

The roaring and pain in her head was slowly subsiding to a dull throb. After a long moment, her eyes slid open.

The captain was still gently holding her head, his expression grave.

"You've got a little gold in your eyes." The words came unbidden. Donna could have kicked herself for the besotted note in her voice. She jerked herself back out of his hands, falling back on her butt.

"What did you do to me?" She demanded. Her head didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all.

"I only helped." He flexed his fingers. "It was you that isolated the memory locales and stopped the processing." He gave her a stern look. "It's not permanent."

Donna let out a breath. "As long as it buys me time, I can figure out something."

He looked grim at her forced optimism. "The more you access the Time Lord's memories, the more your mental faculties will break down." He warned.

"Then I guess I'll have to rely on my Earth can-do spunk." Donna gave him a sheepish look. "Um, thanks. And sorry for the, ah, you know, kick in the jewels."

He gave a wry smile, and then Lily stuck her head around the door frame. Instead of the blue prison jumpsuit, she was now in loose pants, big boots and a breastplate of sorts. "I heard voices." She said. "Are you done?"

The captain eyed Donna sideways. "For now."

Donna's eyebrows rose. "Promises, promises." She said innocently. The captain's eyes narrowed at her.

The corner of Lily's mouth kicked up in a smirk. "We'll be there soon. The boys want a debriefing."

Donna cocked her head to the side. "That's what she said." Then it hit her. "What? Where are we? We've left the prison?"

Lily just looked at her. "You've been here for five days."

Donna's jaw dropped.

"All right." The Captain rose to his feet, a slight hitch in his lithe grace, making to follow Lily back to the bridge.

At the door he stopped, turning to look back at her.

"Are you coming?"

Donna grinned. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be interesting to find out.

One day she was going to learn not to tempt fate.


	5. Chapter 5

After several long minutes where Donna ate something that resembled pasta, wandered aimlessly around the ship in search for the loo, and stared in horror at her reflection, she finally emerged onto the bridge in an outsized shirt, dark trousers, and her trainers.

And came face to face with the last member of the Captain's crew.

"Holy god!"

She jumped back.

The forth member of the crew was easily seven feet tall, a strange, paisley colour, and covered in scales. He had a massive, raptor-like muzzle, and yellow, baseball-sized eyes that eyed her beadily with an uncanny intelligence.

It had a tablet of some sort underneath a sinuously-muscled arm and sniffed at her disdainfully.

"Oh, you brought me a snack." His lizardy upper lip lifted in a sneer. "Urgh. She's old and tough. How am I supposed to eat this?"

The threat to eat her sailed right over her head as Donna straightened.

"Old?" She demanded. " _Old_? Watch it, before I turn you into four dozen pairs of shoes, you great scaly lump!"

In hindsight, picking a fight with a giant lizard was probably not one of her best ideas, but whatever.

The captain's calm voice cut through the burgeoning bickering like a knife.

"Enough."

Instant quiet. Donna stared. In her experience, only the Doctor could command respect that absolutely.

"This is Roger." The captain said. "Roger, this is Donna."

 _Yeah, this is surreal._

"'Roger'?" Donna asked sceptically. "What sort of name is that for a lizard?"

"What sort of name is _Donna_ for a human?" The massive lizard shot back.

"A perfectly reasonable one, thank you very much."

"That's enough." The captain stood from his seat at the helm. He had changed from the warden's getup into a fitted shirt, heavy pants and big boots. His hands were still gloved and a gun belt wrapped around his hips. He looked quite yummy in an outlaw kind of way.

He sized her up with those shrewd green eyes, fists on his hips and feet shoulder-width apart. He looked like he was about to head off to a gun fight at the OK Corral. In space.

Roger just rode roughshod over both of them, ignoring the knife-edge in the atmosphere.

"Are we picking up strays now?" He demanded. "We've planned the hell out of this operation, and we don't need to be taking in Little Red here."

"She stays." The captain cut over him, expression neutral.

"This could throw the whole model off." The lizard argued back. "Everyone here needs to play their part to perfection. It's a new variable that needs to be taken into account, and what if it can't even pull it's own weight? Once we're out, we can't afford to keep stopping because you pasty warm-blooded sausages decide to shoot strands of DNA at each other."

 _"Whoa!"_ Donna held her hands up. "First up, there's going to be _no_ DNA shooting in my vicinity _whatsoever_ , I can assure you!" The captain may have been handsome, and had stopped her brain kersploding, but he was still kind of an ass. She'd already done the bad boy thing, and had no immediate desire to repeat the experience. "And the 'it' has a name."

The lizard sneered.

The captain watched this exchange, his expression neutral. Donna stared hard at him. He was such a contrast to the Doctor, who walked around with his emotions on his sleeve. She couldn't see anything at all.

"Are you done?" He asked calmly.

Roger simmered into silence.

"The girl stays. She has a Time Lord in her head."

Silence reigned in the bridge for a long moment, and Donna drew herself up. "My name is Donna Noble. Not 'it' or 'girl'."

No one seemed to pay her any attention. There was a patter behind her, and Donna turned to see the little boy enter. His eyes were narrowed, but he was bristling with a manic energy that she recognised from her time with the Doctor.

His eyes were fixed on her.

"Fascinating." He said, with the air of a scientist watching a lab rat repeatedly electrocuting itself looking for the food button. He circled her slowly with his hands folded neatly behind his back, like a diminutive Bond villain. Donna's eyes followed him, her sneer feeling like it was permanently etching itself on her face.

The boy ignored her obvious hostility. "Fascinating." He said again. "And an _Earther_. What about the Metacrisis Effect?"

Donna frowned. The few memories she had accessed told her that primitive sentient-brained creatures like her were doomed the moment they were slaved together with a Time Lord mind, but both the boy and the captain knew about the Metacrisis Effect, and the captain in particular knew a trick to counter the effects somewhat.

There _must_ have been a way to beat the Metacrisis.

She opened her mouth to reply, but the captain cut in over her.

"Under control for now." He glared at her. "But more she picks at the compartmentalisation, the worse the Effect will become."

Donna glared back. "I can speak for myself."

His brows rose. "As you have proven repeatedly."

"You really are a jerk, you know that?"

"Now you and Roger have met." He cut over her again, and Donna was seconds away from socking him in the jaw. He'd been nice, almost friendly, when he'd recognised the Metacrisis and helped her to stem the flow of new information, but now he was just as cold as before. "Roger is our tech man."

Donna just looked at the lizard sceptically. He glowered back at her.

"And this is our medic." He indicated the boy. "Doctor Zaphod."

The boy nodded and smiled pleasantly, hands still neatly clasped behind his back. Donna's brow furrowed.

"Zaphod? Like the bloke from _Hitchhiker's Guide_? By Douglas Adams?"

For a moment, the boy, the doctor, looked unamused. His expression twisted. "Irritating little man he was."

Donna frowned. "You what?"

"Nothing, my dear. Merely having a little reminisce." He smiled.

Donna sank down on her haunches, so she was eye level with the kid.

"How come you look like a little kid but sound like you're an extra in a period piece?" She regarded him with the same fascination that he had with her earlier.

Zaphod raised an eyebrow. "Appearances can be deceptive. If you truly are a Time Lord's companion, you should know more than anyone."

Donna frowned. "D'you mind using a word other than 'companion'? It makes me sound like a hooker."

The captain smirked. Zaphod's brow furrowed.

"Confidant?"

"Better."

"So who is he?" Roger asked.

"What?"

He rolled his eyes. Apparently it was a universal gesture for _you gotta be kidding me_.

"Your Time Lord!"

It was then that Donna realised that she really didn't know who these people were, and what they planned to do. She had picked up pieces of a plan, but no one had seemed inclined to fill in the blanks.

Even though he seemed to take the knocks in stride and roll with the punches, the captain didn't strike her as a man who really flew by the seat of his pants without backup of some description. Donna's plain old Earth common sense told her that he had a plan for her in the long run.

A plan that was probably not that good for her.

 _Yippee._

"The Time Lords are dead." Donna said steadily, staring at the captain. He gave that little unfriendly smirk again, spinning his chair at the helm around and sinking into it, eyes on her.

"Is that so?" He asked idly, like he didn't really care one way or another about the answer.

"That's so." If he was spoiling for a fight, she'd happily bring it to him. "And since I know diddly-squat about this crew or _you_ , I'm pretty sure I'm entitled to not tell you anything."

The little doctor looked like he was considering backing slowly from the bridge. In contrast, Roger looked like he wished he had a bag of chips, a beer, and a comfortable seat. Donna idly wondered where Lily was.

"You want to know about me, fine." His voice was silky and deadly, and he lent forward on his seat, forearms flat against his knees. Donna felt herself go rigid, knowing that this was the make or break moment. She was aware of Zaphod shepherding Roger from the bridge. It would have been amusing if it wasn't so serious.

"As you may have guessed, I have seen the Metacrisis Effect at work on lesser evolved beings before."

Donna almost snorted at the 'lesser evolved beings' part. If not for the space pirate meets Renaissance fair thing he had going on, he would have been just another pretty, obnoxious _man_. Well, she was pretty sure that's what he was. She was reasonably confident from when she had kneed him in the goolies that everything was where it was supposed to be, if perhaps not exactly in working order.

He never broke his staring contest with her.

"I have seen regeneration energy used to save lives en mass, and I have seen the fallout."

It came out before she was conscious of saying it.

"How?"

His deadly smile turned into a sneer.

"Because it wasn't just Time Lords that fought in the War."

Donna sank down into the navigator's chair, watching him, silenced.

"The War drew out all factions, including those who were to use the death and destruction for their own gains. I was one of the heads of the Elysium star system resistance. We were fighting a battle on both sides. The Daleks on one and the Nightmare Child on the other." His voice was flat. It was something that Donna had seen in the Doctor during the fight with the Racnoss. Part of him was still fighting the Last Great Time War.

"What happened?"

He gave a little shrug.

"We lost." The man said it so casually that Donna's internal alarms went off. Suddenly his presence in the Doctor's memories, and the horrible guilt and sadness that the Time Lord associated with him made a wrenching sense.

"The captain goes down with his ship."

He shot her a smile. It was a nice smile when not weighed down with cynicism and bitterness.

"You don't have to tell us which Time Lord, but be aware that the Time War is not a distant memory to the people that inhabit this arm of the universe. You must be careful who you reveal the Metacrisis to, and even without that, the Time Lords still have many enemies."

 _You don't have to tell me that._ Donna's brows drew together. "How long has it been for you?"

His brows rose at her unintended innuendo, and he smiled, another genuine smile.

"I didn't mean it like _that_ , you clot." It seemed that whatever galaxy you ended up in, men related everything back to sex. "I meant, how long since the Time War ended for you?" The Doctor had spoken like the Time War was so far in the past Donna couldn't even imagine it, but she knew for a fact that humans of the future had fought the war against the Daleks.

The captain wrinkled his nose slightly. He had freckles. _That's cute. Snap out of it, girl. He's a tool._ "Ah, yes. The relative confusion surrounding life with a time traveller."

She gave a what-can-you-do shrug.

"Relative to this universe, it has been three years."

It was a good thing that she was already sitting down, otherwise her legs would have given out from beneath her, mind reeling.

Three years.

 _It's only been three years since the end of the Time War._


	6. Chapter 6

The two of them stood side by side on the bridge, staring into unfolding space. She loved the TARDIS, but the captain's ship, all black and streamlined, just seemed so much cooler in that Star Trek way.

"He's after me." Donna confessed quietly. She looked down at the vortex manipulator still strapped to her wrist. The captain had registered the manipulator briefly before dismissing it, and Donna had to remind herself that she was currently in an era where time/space travel devices were as commonplace as iPods. "I have his memories, so I knew that he would just wipe my mind like an Etch-A-Sketch instead of trying to... Because it's not _natural_. It shouldn't be _done_."

He arched an eyebrow. "Therefore it's wrong to prolong your misery." There was a bitterness to his voice. "Time Lords. Always knowing what's better for everyone else."

She peered at him sideways. "Seriously, mate, ease up on the bitter."

He gave her a shadow of a grin. "But I do it so _well_."

"I know you have an ulterior motive for having me here."

"And you are using me to keep yourself out of the clutches of your Time Lord while preventing your mind from collapsing, so I would say we're even."

"Touché." Until she figured out his little Jedi mind trick, she wasn't going anywhere. Donna stared out into the star system. "Is there a cure? Some sort of space pill I can take three times a day? I'm not really a meditation person."

An eyebrow rose as he wordlessly said _really? No shit._

"No."

Her eyes closed, shoulders slumping. She heard the captain sigh.

"Not that I know of." He amended himself grudgingly. "By the end of the War, regeneration energy was being used en mass to sustain entire armies. We still lost."

Donna looked at him, his handsome, brooding profile. "There must have been someone who survived."

He shrugged. "By the time the Gates of Elysium fell, I was already a prisoner of war."

Donna bit her lip. _Open mouth, insert foot._ "So we both agree that we're using each other."

That damn eyebrow went up again and she felt like kicking him.

"It feels weird that I know all this stuff about you, but I don't know your name."

He was silent for a long moment. Donna was starting to think that he wasn't going to answer and her lip curled, wondering whether he was more like the Doctor than he first appeared. There was going to be no way in hell she was going to keep calling him _captain_.

"Skytreader. My name is Loki Skytreader."

There was silence. Donna just stared at him.

"What? _Really_? Your name is _Loki_?"

His brow furrowed. "What's wrong with Loki?"

The next moment she doubled over in silent laughter as he stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

"What?"

"It's just... your name is _Loki_."

He was looking genuinely confused, and maybe a little annoyed by her reaction. "It's a common boy's name on Elysium."

"It's... we kind of... have a deity on Earth called Loki. A god."

"He wishes."

It was Lily, followed by the other boys. She looked at Loki. "You need to suit up."

"Suit up? What are you all doing?" It was then that Donna realised that she never got to ask the most important question. Who were these people?

Lily gave Loki a look. "You haven't told her yet?" Her tone was reproachful.

"Tell me what?" Donna looked between them, and then back beyond the bridge. Her eyes widened when she realised that they were orbiting a planet.

And in a ring around the planet were hundreds and hundreds of ships.

The Doctor's awareness lurched uncomfortably in her brain.

"Cybermen." Donna breathed. "Cybermen!" She whirled. "Who _are_ you people?"

Lily threw Loki a rebuking look and he stared stonily back at her.

The little doctor tilted his head to the side. "We are here because we have a job to complete."

"What?" She snapped back around to face the captain. "What the bloody hell do you think you're _doing_?" She demanded. "They'll kill you. They'll kill all of us!"

"No they won't." The captain said. Loki took her hand and placed it on his chest over his heart. Donna froze for a moment before registering lean muscle underneath her hand ( _yum_ ) and something else. Something hard and unyielding.

Metal.

He was _cyber_.

"Those ships are scouters." He said, like that made a difference. "They are given their orders and they obey unthinkingly. I am able to slip past them without rousing attention, provided I am quick."

Her hand was still resting against his chest. Realising it, Donna jerked her hand back.

"Quick doing what?" She demanded.

Loki looked over to Zaphod, and a wordless message passed between them.

"Noble, would you care to assist me for a moment?"

The little doctor was so polite that she could hardly refuse.

Donna just gave Loki one last cutting glare. "Sure. Why not?"

She followed the little doctor through the bowels of the ship, with a feeling that the captain had effectively brushed her off.

"Am I missing something? This ship seems way too big for just the four of you."

"Correct." Zaphod said. "This ship once flew for the Elysium Resistance." He patted one of the chrome-patched panels fondly. "We took her back when we escaped."

"'We'? Don't tell me _you_ fought in the Time War too."

He shot her a boyish smile. "I am _much_ older than I look."

 _Who isn't?_

Her eyes narrowed. "How much older?"

He gave her that annoyingly superior smile.

"All in good time, my girl."

Donna gritted her teeth. He was cute and all in that eight year old way, but if he called her _girl_ one more time she was going to stomp him.

Zaphod led her into a massive laboratory. Two massive lab benches curved around the space, littered with various scientific devices that Donna had entirely no idea what they were for. As she walked around the benches, she noticed that there were small footprints in the light layer of dust.

As her brows rose, Zaphod used the grooves cut into the edge to clamber up onto the bench, closer to Donna's height. With an indistinct flick of his wrist, a holographic viewer sprang to life in the centre of the lab between the two massive benches.

Donna stared as the letters rearranged themselves into a form she could read.

"It's a _computer_." Her eyes narrowed. "D'you get wifi out here?"

The doctor gave her an amused look. Donna reached out to touch the display. The computer registered her movements, but her hand passed right through the holographic images.

"Slow." Zaphod said. "Gentle."

Donna snorted. _Yeah._ She didn't do slow. Or gentle. After a moment of playing, she realised that the doctor was watching her, brow creased in thought. Her eyes narrowed, but she kept her gaze forward.

"So, the captain sent me here to distract me with shiny things, I presume?"

The doctor didn't bite. He sat on the edge of the bench, linking his hands in his lap. "I like to think of us as retrieval specialists."

She looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"A wide variety of clientele contact the captain to have him... arrange a service."

"What service?" Suspicions were beginning to form in Donna's mind. Zaphod just looked at her with those calm eyes. "You're _thieves_."

The doctor's face tightened.

"There are few career paths open for veterans of the Time War." He said coldly. "You must understand, the War was not a popular conflict."

"There are _popular_ conflicts?"

He threw her a stern look. "Soldiers were thrown into a war that was not their own, and their own people resented and rejected them for their involvement in something that politics had forced them into."

"Like Vietnam." Donna said softly. All along had she thought of the Time War as the Time Lords vs the Daleks. She had never stopped to consider those stuck in the middle, the collateral damage. She sat down heavily on one of the tall stools, opposite Zaphod.

"I walked into the middle of your job, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"At the prison?"

"Yes."

Donna skewered him with her gaze. "Hey, it seems I've lumped myself in with you lot, so the least you can do is stop holding out on me."

He gave her an amused look. "We needed the key, if you will. To find the location of the Jewel of Verdai."

The name had a note of familiarity to it, but Donna deliberately didn't delve into her Time Lord memories for fear of worsening the Metacrisis Effect.

"Our contact in the prison was there when the Cybermen stole the Jewel. However, he was heavily guarded at all times, which required infiltration."

Well, that explained a bit.

"Why didn't you get your contact out too?"

Zaphod snorted. "He wished to remain."

"What?"

"In the prison, he is a king. Outside, he is simply another gun runner."

"Oh." Well, what else are you supposed to say to that?

"We are to return the Jewel to the rightful place in the galaxy." He continued.

"And be generously compensated for it, of course."

"Of course."

"Why you?"

The doctor cocked his head to the side.

"Not to sound arrogant, but we are the best."

"Yeah. That's not arrogant _at all_."

"Long before the war, the captain had a reputation as ingenious and cunning. That has followed him into his... career change."

He eyed her unblinkingly, and Donna squirmed, beginning to feel uncomfortable. "So the plan is to sneak in under the Cybermen's guard and steal back this... Jewel."

"Yes." Well, at least he wasn't a big talker.

"And how did... Captain Loki... get all... cyber?"

Zaphod's expression closed off, and Donna knew at once that the boy knew more than he was willing to say. "That is not my story to tell." He said sternly. "Perhaps in time the tale will be revealed to you."

Okay, now _this_ is an awkward silence.

Donna and Zaphod sat there staring at each other before the solid metal doors slid open, and Roger the tech lizard stomped in. He looked scornfully at both of them before commandeering the massive computer.

"Lilith is at the helm." With the lack of inflection in his voice, he could have been addressing a chair. "The Captain is going down now."

Several different monitors sprang to life, maps, blueprints, Loki's vitals, and a live feed that must have been emanating from somewhere on the Captain's person.

Roger smiled, or as much as a lizard could smile.

"Let's begin."


	7. Chapter 7

It was never meant to be this complicated. Once he had it all planned out. He was going to rise through the military of Elysium, make sure his family was seen to, and maybe run for President one day.

And then the Time War came along, completely shredding the future for millions of lives.

Loki followed the guide line to the end of the tether. He was clad in a hard black exoskeleton moulded to his body, life support system built into the shell. He checked the heads-up display in his helmet before clearing the guide line and switching on his independent guidance systems.

Once he had been a pilot, a decorated soldier that had led the Gates of Elysium offensive against the Nightmare Child, that had destroyed Davros and half the Dalek fleet at the same time. He had fought in Arcadia at the beginning and tried in vain to save the Gelth homeworld, and now here he was, a common thief.

Carefully steering himself around the scout ships, he approached the glowing gravity lift that led down to the planet's surface, ferrying supplies to the army below.

"Breaking through the grav beam."

" _Roger that."_ Lilith said.

Loki reached out a gauntleted hand toward the gravity lift.

The moment his fingertips grazed the beam, Loki was sucked in, tumbling head over head. Engaging his thrusters, the captain steadied his erratic fall.

" _There's six guards at the bottom of the lift."_ The voice over the comms was the brash Earther woman, Donna Noble. The Earth-Gallifrey Metacrisis. Another complication in his life that he didn't need.

"Aye." Loki said gruffly.

" _Don't get killed."_ The woman said warily.

He just laughed dryly.

Boots slammed into the packed dirt beneath the gravity lift, and he crouched on his haunches for a moment, getting his bearings. The readouts momentarily crackled as they processed his new surroundings.

He straightened cautiously. The gravity lift's landing port was ringed by Cybermen, all with their backs to him. Loki let out a steady breath. Perhaps his day was going to finally turn around.

" _Unauthorised transport detected."_

Perhaps not.

His mind screamed at him to fight, but Loki kept still, ordinary, unthreatening. Cyber. As one, all the Cybermen turned to him. The captain was dimly aware of a trickle of sweat running down his temple underneath his helmet.

" _Explain your presence."_

The suit's overhead display informed Loki that he was being scanned, and for the first time a note of worry flashed through his head as he hoped Zaphod's hypothesis was correct. The Cybermen scanned his biomechanical limbs and artificial organs, the wiring holding his spine and skull together.

" _Explain."_ It demanded again.

" _Preparing info link."_ Roger said in his ear.

"Reinforcing supplies to the facility." Loki said.

" _Info link uploading."_ Said Roger. A long line of code flashed past his overhead display and into the waiting Cyberman's wireless network.

The lead Cyberman stepped forward.

"Roger," Loki growled.

" _Give it a minute."_ Roger growled back. _"My code will work."_

Slowly the Cyberman reached out a metal hand. Loki gritted his teeth.

" _My code will work!"_

After an interminable minute, the Cyberman's hand stopped, a hair's width from Loki's throat.

As one, they all stepped back.

" _Authorisation accepted."_

A modicum of tension left his frame. The captain strode through the Cybermen.

" _Smooth."_ The Earth woman said sarcastically.

" _Shh."_ Roger hissed.

" _The Wall is dead ahead."_ Zaphod said. _The Cyberman conversion facility._ Loki didn't reply, never breaking his stride. Having accepted him as cyber, none of the cyber drones registered that anything was different about him.

He took a step into the Wall, the massive processing farm for this sector.

And his communications dropped out.

"Damn." It wasn't unexpected, but it was annoying. He had worked blind before, and he had hoped those days were over. "Here we go."

Various maintenance tunnels led into the main complex. Loki passed rows of cells, each one marked with a number. The soldier in him wished to release all the occupants of the cells, but he was only here for one person. This time.

A light flashed on his overhead display, and the captain stopped in front of one of the cells.

He was here.

* * *

Donna's eyes were glued to the unresponsive screens as Roger frantically tried to restore communications with the captain.

"Well, he'll be okay. He's only got to go in, get the Jewel, and get out. What's the worst that can happen?"

 _I can't believe I just said that. I've just jinxed everything._

Roger stopped what he was doing and shot a bemused look at Zaphod. The diminutive doctor frowned, looking at her.

"Noble."

"Yeah?"

"Just so you are aware, the Jewel... is not an actual _jewel_."

"What?"

"Unlike the majority of civilised planets going back to the Dark Times, Verdai still has a reigning monarchy." Zaphod said. "The current royal family itself dates back many thousands of years, and they have maintained their superiority through a... unique set of skills that are holdovers from the Dark Times."

Donna's eyes narrowed.

"Each member of the family is born with what they call a Talent. A mutation, if you will, providing the bearer with a form of sixth sense. Verdai's current king himself is a high range empath. He can detect and control other's emotions."

Donna cocked her head to the side. Well, it was probably a good gift to have to avoid those pesky civil wars and bloody rebellions.

"You doubt me."

"No." She said a little too quickly. "It just seems a little too fantasy and not enough scifi."

Zaphod shrugged. "The closer you get to the centre of the universe, the more elemental the people become."

Donna's lips pressed together. "Not really answering my question. What is the Jewel?"

Roger huffed. "Goddess, Doc, it's always exposition with you." He looked at Donna with those big yellow eyes. "The Jewel is the crowned heir of the people of Verdai."

Her eyes widened. "Why would the Cybermen kidnap this heir?"

"The current heir is said to have precognition."

"He sees the _future?"_

"That is what's said."

"But why? Why would the Cybermen want that kid?"

"The Cybermen are creatures of pure logic." Zaphod said. "They take what advantages present themselves. To the Cyber Controller, it would be an opportunity not to be missed to have a foolproof method to not make any of the mistakes of their forebears."

"Oh, lord."

A dark frown creased Zaphod's brow. "Regardless of the contract, there was no way that we were ever going to leave the Jewel with the Cybermen. We are still primarily soldiers fighting for the good of the universe. It would bring about a new Cyber plague, with the Controller knowing all their mistakes and correcting them before they were even made."

"God."

Roger looked sour. "Cybermen, bad. Jewel, good. Cybermen + Jewel, double bad. I _think_ we have worked that out by now, despite racial handicaps."

Zaphod and Donna threw him annoyed looks. The lizard shrugged and resumed working.

" _Everyone."_ It was Lily. _"I think we might have a problem."_

Donna frowned. The little doctor slipped from the bench and opened another monitor. This monitor showed the display of what Lily was seeing on the bridge.

"Oh dear." Zaphod breathed. _Understatement of the friggin' century, Doc._

Slowly the huge lumbering scout ships were turning like one toward the captain's little cloaked ship.

"Crap." Donna breathed.

* * *

In the end, the Cybermen's obvious reliance on computers was what enabled Captain Skytreader to easily bypass their systems. If you knew what to expect, it was easy enough to loop video feeds and trick computerised locks.

Finally he found the prize.

The youth was suspended in a stasis chamber, frozen in place while his eyes darted around in abject terror. In a moment his eyes locked on the new figure in the black exoskeleton, the helmet as expressionless as the Cybermen guarding him.

Loki strode past the cyber guards. Roger's fake codes were holding, but the captain wasn't willing to bet on how long. He stopped in front of the stasis chamber.

 _Help me,_ the youth's eyes implored. _Help me._

Loki touched the access panel.

That was all it took.

All the Cybermen in the room turned to him as one.

" _Identify yourself."_ Every guard in the room intoned.

"Certainly." Loki said, and hit a button on his suit. The next moment he was encased in an electromagnetic sphere as the pulse punched outwards, momentarily disabling the guards and the complex.

Emergency protocols engaged, opening the stasis chamber and ejecting its cargo. The youth dropped lightly to the ground, feral eyes staring up at Loki from beneath a shock of brilliant white hair.

The captain's faceplate and helmet folded away, neatly slotting into the suit's reinforced collar. The boy's expression eased slightly upon seeing Loki's face.

"Who are _you?"_ He demanded, with the haughty tone of one raised in a palace, but Loki knew that the attitude was a mantle the youth pulled around himself to mask the fear.

"Captain Skytreader of the Elysium fleet." Loki said. "Your father has sent me for you."

"How can I trust you?"

Beside Loki, one of the Cybermen's fingers began twitching. The EM pulse was already beginning to wear off. "I hardly think this is the place for a conversation, little prince."

The youth's face twisted sourly, but he didn't disagree. Together the two of them made their way back toward the gravity lift, slipping past the waking Cybermen.

As he passed out of the complex, the captain's earpiece crackled to life.

" _-evasive manoeuvres!"_

" _-compromised-"_

" _-insane! I'm a bloody temp from Chiswick. What the hell am I doing here?"_

" _Buck up, Earth girl. We're going for a ride."_

His crew's communications cut out, and another voice came over the comms. Deep, menacing, electronic.

" _Captain Skytreader."_ Said the voice. _"Captain Loki Skytreader, this is the Cyber Controller of this sector."_

The youth just looked at him.

" _Your perseverance is admirable."_ The Controller said. _"But your run has been terminated. You will present yourself to me and return the Jewel, or your crew will be deleted."_

Loki's eyes narrowed.

 _Time to move into phase 2._


	8. Chapter 8

Walking beside Lily and Zaphod, Donna's heart was in her throat. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Roger the lizard was fuming. "I told you." He hissed to Zaphod. He cast a baleful look at Donna. "I told you she would tip the scales."

Donna sneered back at him. "Is that supposed to be a fat joke?"

"Really? Now?" Lily rolled her eyes, looking unusually at ease. "There are more important things, children."

Roger glowered at her. "Yes, Mother."

"Silence." The Cyberman stopped in front of them. Slowly the doors slid up into the ceiling, and they found themselves in a chrome and glass hall. And at the end of the hall was that sector's Cyber Controller.

He sat on a throne-like control chair, wires everywhere. The Controller had a black faceplate and breastplate, and a human brain floated in a dome of viscous fluid, reminding Donna of pickled onions.

The Cyber Controller looked up, and Donna swore she saw an uncanny intelligence in those merciless black pits.

"You are dismissed." He said to their Cyber escort.

The Controller stood.

"You have all come a long way to die."

None of them said anything.

"The great veterans of the Time War." He continued. Those dead black pits where his eyes should have been never left Donna's face. She had a feeling that he was looking at more than her physical form. "Such a _long_ way to die."

Doona frowned, more irritated than intimidated. She had dealt with her share of bullies before, and that was all the Cyber Controller was. An alien bully.

One hand on her hip, she stabbed a finger at the Controller.

"Look, pal, I've entirely had enough of megalomaniacs giving me the 'we're all doomed' talk lately. I know who you are, and I know what you do, but for some reason we're all still alive." She cocked her head to the side. "And instead of going down and zapping the captain, you're trying to bring him up here." Her brain was beginning to burn, telling her to stop picking.

There was silence. The next moment, there was the sound of whirring gears as the Controller stepped down off his throne.

She refused to step back. He stood nose to nose with Donna, and she realised with a start that this Cyberman was a foot or so shorter than the others. The irregularity among a people that were obsessed with uniformity seemed unusual.

"You provoke, Noble."

"So I'm told." Donna growled. "How do you know who I am?" After all, she had been blasted forwards-backwards-forwards in time, so often that even she could hardly keep up.

"The Cyber neural link is a wireless network that can be accessed by anyone that can trick the uplink." Roger said, _like me_ wordlessly added to the end of his sentence.

"Can a Cyberman access the neural link through time?"

"Time is an unmeasurable variable."

"Bloody hell, why can't anyone just say yes or no in this galaxy?" She complained. "That doesn't answer my damn question!"

"You Earth girls are always so dramatic."

" _Roger_." Both Lily and Zaphod groaned.

Donna ignored him.

"You're scared of us."

If he could have, she thought to Cyberman would have chuckled. "You think yourself so perceptive, and yet you march happily to your doom."

"That's me. Don't stop dancing." Donna and the Cyberman were practically nose to nose now. The Time Lord part of her screamed at her to stop back, but she was damn well still Donna Noble. "You know what I can do."

Her brain felt like it was going to burst into flame.

"I do." Said the Controller.

"Donna." Zaphod hissed.

"You know not what I do."

"You bet I bloody do, Shakespeare – sphere – leer – queer –" Donna clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide _. No! Not now! I need my smarts, I need... to... stay..._

With a near soundless gasp she sunk to her knees. Dimly she was aware of Lily's familiar hands on her shoulders.

"Donna!" Zaphod was talking, but it was like he was shouting down a wind tunnel. "Noble, hold on!"

The Cyber Controller was just looking at the unfolding scene, unmoved.

"As I suspected." The Cyberman said. At his word, the drones in the room moved to form a ring around them. "Your _weak_ flesh shell is unsuitable to house the Time Lord Metacrisis."

Blinking through a wash of tears, Donna stared up at the Controller.

"The loss of the Jewel is irrelevant. Human weakness will be replaced. Upgraded to the next level of evolution." With a whirring of gears, it reached out a hand, white energy gathering at his fingertips. "You will be my greatest creation."

* * *

The electromagnetic pulse had knocked out the entirety of the complex. The cyber sentries were twitching, beginning to regain awareness.

Loki dragged the boy to the gravity lift. The comms still buzzed vacantly in his ear, his calls to his crew going unanswered.

Something was wrong.

Armed with only an EM pulse gun and a mouthy youth, he had to get off this planet and get back to his crew.

The youth pulled away from him. He had introduced himself as Demetri, son of Priam, Prince of Verdai and lord of the Seven Skies (whatever the hell those were). And the kid had a damn attitude to match his titles.

"You can't be seriously be thinking about going up there. They'll kill you." _A right little ray of sunshine._

"My crew has gone dark, and I only have one support system. I can pass as Cyberman, but _you_ can't."

"Surely you have a backup plan in case your crew is unreachable."

"Yes." Loki said. He pointed up at the fat supply ship connected to the gravity lift. "That's the backup plan."

The little prince goggled at him. "You are _suicidal_."

"It's been said." The captain said dryly. The Cyberman closest to him raised his head. "Come along, your princeliness. We're about to have some unpleasant company."

The two of them were whooshed up into the supply ship in a rush colour.

* * *

It sliced through her burning head like a knife.

"No!" She shouted.

The hand tightened on her shoulder. "You will be upgraded. Your shell is inefficient. You will be Cyberman. You will be flawless. You will lead."

" _No_!"

"You will _lead_."

"The lady said no."

The voice was smooth, with a dangerous edge. Donna felt impossibly relieved when she heard it.

Loki walked into the room in his black exoskeleton, which was a bit Iron Man, a bit Tron, and a whole lotta sexy.

 _I could kiss you, you bastard._

"About damn time." Lily snapped.

"Sorry." The captain smirked. "I had to tweak the model a bit."

Roger threw up his hands, exasperated. "I don't even know why I even bother trying to help you people."

"I told you, flying by the seat of your pants is not luck, it's a skill." Loki never took his eyes from the Controller and Donna. "How's it going, girl?"

The sea of pain seemed to part briefly. "Don't call me girl." She ground out.

"You have lost." The Cyber Controller intoned. "The DoctorDonna is prophesised. She will be mine. Your crew are prisoners. You have lost."

"Of course." Loki said. "That is of course not taking into account that perhaps that my crew expected to be captured and planned accordingly. Like, perhaps, while you were doing your villain monolog-ing, my crew planted electromagnetic wave amplifiers throughout the ship, where if they were hit by the correct pulse, would cripple this ship's engines long enough to send it spiralling into your processing farm."

"You lie."

His face was entirely calm. "I don't bluff."

The next moment there was a pop and fizz of burned electronics, and the supply ship listed to the side.

"And that would mean that's time's up." The captain said. "The timer was set the moment you brought in my ship."

"Impossible."

"I'm good at impossible." The captain assured him as the pulse reached the control room. The Cyber Controller reached out to him with both hands, determined to end the man before the pulse temporarily knocked him offline.

Loki snapped around to his crew, gesturing to Donna.

"Get her back to the ship!" The captain ordered. "This place is coming down!"

"No!" Donna lurched forward, breaking Lily's hold on her. Loki caught her and she held his arms in a death-grip. In an instant an arc of pure clarity had cut through her head, and she knew.

 _Knew._

"Head... more memory," she managed to get out. "Input, output, overload. _Memory_."

 _God,_ please _understand._

It seemed to take forever before a spark of perception lit in his green eyes, and Donna could have wept with relief. The captain pushed her back toward Lily. "Go!"

"But-" Lily looked entirely uncomprehending and Loki shot her a sharp grin.

"I got this."

"Don't be late!" The doctor shouted.

And that was that. His rag-tag crew, who normally back-talked and needled him incessantly unlike the seasoned soldiers he lead during the Time War, immediately snapped to follow his order, leaving Loki with the Cyberman.

"You lose." He said coldly.

"There are more of us. There will always be more of us. She will lead."

"What, _you_?" Loki asked. "That's why you needed the oracle, wasn't it? To see who she will lead."

"She will _lead_." The Cyberman said again.

Loki frowned.

"The War is over."

"The War is never over." The Controller said. "It loops back and comes around again. This war will not end!"

The Cyberman dropped to his knees as the pulse arced through him, tearing apart electronics.

"This war will not end. She comes, she comes out of the darkness, returning." That same uncanny intelligence was back. "She comes, trailing blood and death, and we all must – must –" The Cyberman's head rose, looking Loki in the eye.

"The Nightmare Child is coming home."

An icy fist closed around the captain's heart.

The Controller was winding down, muttering to itself.

"She was to be my greatest creation."

Loki stared down at the decommissioned cyborg, not quite sure what he was feeling. He drew his blade, the one he had strapped to his thigh.

"She will be."

And he cut off the Cyber Controller's head.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this up. Life, y'know?**

 **All quotes are from the show.**

* * *

Waking was like swimming upwards through thick jelly. Eyes opened, eyeballs dry and gritty, roaming unfocused around the room, seeing but not registering.

"Noble?"

A name. _Who?_ The answer appeared but skittered away before it could be grasped.

"Noble, can you hear me?"

And the shadow was leaning over, small and wiry and concerned, shining light into the itching eyes. "Focus on the light for me."

The burning eyes slipped past the scorching light and onto the diminutive figure beyond. Everything instantly snapped into focus, everything too bright and sharp, fragments whirling, memories as insubstantial as ghosts and as solid as stone.

 _-mutant, genetic anomaly, brother of monsters-_

"Donna?"

New shadow. New darkness. The angular blonde creature was peering over the little doctor's shoulder. Eyes followed, memory echoed.

- _smart, resourceful, beautiful, killer-_

"I don't like this." Brother of Monsters said bitterly. "The human brain was never meant to be jerry-rigged this way."

"What do you suggest?" A new voice, as cold as the Void itself. "Perhaps we should just kill her."

Brother of Monsters bristled angrily. "I never suggested such a thing, you miserable bastard." He growled. "This is not supposed to be done! We could leave her _entirely_ brain dead!"

"Or we could save her life."

Dry eyes sought out the last shadow. He was standing at the foot of the medical stretcher, arms folded across his torso like the Prydonian Guards of old, standing sentry over a fallen comrade, guarding the dying.

Memories, as sharp and cutting as broken glass, slicing through those that tried in vain to grasp them. Memories of so long ago. Memories dried and withered to dust.

 _-irrational idiot, warrior, companion, friend, drinking, gambling, carousing, two soldiers, one old and grizzled and jaded, the other young and headstrong and idealistic-_

"Donna, focus." Irrational Idiot's voice was low and growly. He unfurled himself and snapped his fingers sharply.

"Focus."

 _Something behind the dry eyes twisted and whirled and itched, reacting to those cold, blunt words with irritation and annoyance._

 _Why?_

The memories fell like tears.

 _-irrational idiot, stubborn bastard, suicidal maniac-_

"Donna, Zaphod has installed a Cyberdrive in your brain, freeing up virtually limitless space for your Time Lord mind." Green eyes flashed, showing blood and death and fire and

 _i'm coming back foryou i sweari'm comingbackfor you-_

" _Loooki_ ,"

While Brother of Monsters looked suddenly hopeful, Irrational Idiot's frown deepened.

"That seems promising."

"No." Irrational Idiot looked grave. "It's happening."

 _It's happening._

 _It's happening._

 _What?_

 _I don't –_

"This was a bad idea!" Beautiful Killer insisted. "We should have put her in stasis and found a better way!"

"There is no _better way_ ," Brother of Monsters snapped. "While a modern Earther would have been able to smoothly adapt to the cybernetic implant, Noble is quite _literally_ a throwback of hundreds of thousands of years ago!"

"Enough." The voice that came from behind the dry eyes was slurred, tongue deadened and weighted. "You will cease... your inane prattling."

 _The words are not right... not right... not the right words..._

The three just stared dumbly.

"Donna." Irrational Idiot said again. _Why does he keep saying that?_ "The core problem of... two presences in the same mind is that... they will fight for dominance."

The air was heavy with impending doom.

 _Knew. Knew that. Then, now, later, all relative, all mixed up, future was then, past is now, present is somewhere else altogether..._

"And right now the Time Lord is trying to push you out of your own head."

- _fighting, explosions, death, so much death, death stalks the forever dying, never living, the Time Lord Victorious!-_

"Push back! You didn't come this far to give up now, did you?"

 _Did?_

 _I?_

 _-round and round and round we go-_

"You ran from the Time Lord because he was going to take away what made you, you! He's going to do that again, and lock you away in your own head." He reached out, gloved long-fingered hands closing around smaller ones, nails bitten down almost to the quick. "Come on Donna. You're the best damn temp in Chiswick, remember?"

- _where she stops, nobody knows!-_

Fragments. So many fragments, so many faces, so many voices. But all the same.

 _If you could see the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?_

The events will happen, just as they are written. I'm afraid we can't stem the tide. But at least we can stop being carried away with the flood!

 _Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences._

A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting.

"Donna?"

 _Destiny. Isn't that just a fancy name for blind chance?_

"Donna!"

 _Donna!_

 _A child with long swinging red hair running after a grizzled, dark-haired man._

Coming, daddy! Wait for me. Wait for me!

 _Disappearing into the darkness, leaving the girl alone. Always alone. Protect yourself. Don't let anyone in-_

It's sort of complicated. I ended up on a spaceship on my wedding day-

 _Listen, I don't know what sort of kinds you've been flying around with in outer space, but you're not telling me to shut up._

-'cause I understand now. You said I was gonna die, but you mean this whole word is gonna blink out of existence. But that's not dying! Cause a better world takes its place, the Doctor's world! And I'm still alive! That's right, isn't it? I don't die. If I change things, I don't die. That's... that's right, isn't it?-

 _Donna!_

And you go with him, that wonderful Doctor. You go and see the stars, and then bring a bit of them back for your old Gramps.

 _A dark shadow, a mournful face and a speech never heard._

I just want you to know there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light years away. They will never forget her.

 _You're not telling me to shut up!_

Silence. Defeat. This was a battle that Irrational Idiot could not fight, and the frustration plainly shone on his face.

- _irrational idiot, bloody bastard, mouthy asshole, annoyingly sexyandmysterious-_

Captain Skytreader's face was grave, his big green eyes belying his hard countenance. Dry eyes raked over his face, memorising every freckle, line, and scar. The idealistic young man, so sure that he could lead his people to the teeth of hell and back.

 _When did that young man become so old? When did all that hope fade into the dark?_

My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.

 _Big sad eyes that had seen too much._

Right then he looked so much like the Doctor that it hurt.

 _It hurt._

The hurt made it real.

 _You're not telling me to shut up!_

"If... you keep hangin' over me like that... 'M gonna bite your nose."

Loki smiled, and it took Donna longer than it should have to realise that he was still holding her hands, but snatching them back seemed to require too much effort. She rolled her head from side to side slowly, seeing Lily and Zaphod staring wordlessly at her.

 _Beautiful Killer. Brother of Monsters. Irrational Idiot. They were all there, in her head._

 _In the Doctor's head._

She needed to pee.

"Does someone have any aspirin or somethin'?" Donna pulled one of her hands out of Loki's grip and wearily rubbed at her eyes as the room spun around her crazily, groaning. "Someone stop the universe, I want to get off."

* * *

Lightning cracked through the still night, striking the ground viciously and throwing dirt and debris into the air. Rain suddenly slammed down, roaring in sheets. Lightning struck once more, screaming through the valley, howling with all the rage of a dying planet.

And the next moment there was the voice of a child screaming into the storm.

In the centre of the circle of destruction lay a small, quivering body, huddled in on itself. Thin, shaking hands were pressed firmly against small ears as the child rocked back and forth in the mud, forehead pressed against the ground.

After so long in silence and darkness, the explosion of light and noise was unbearable.

Absolutely unbearable.

It was unknown how long the Child remained there, in misery. It may have been moments or centuries. The mortal grasp of time had no meaning where she had been imprisoned.

The storm quieted.

Eventually the Child unfurled, hands pressed flat to the ground, pushing up to stand on unsteady legs. Moonlight shone _through_ the thin form, the Child as insubstantial as a ghost.

It worked. After time uncharted, it _worked_.

The Nightmare Child had broken through the walls of her prison and into this reality.

A smile curved the Child's translucent lips. It would take time to reconstitute herself on this side of the Void, but in the meantime, there were things to do.

People to see.

...

..

.

..

...

 **End of Part 1.**

 **Next, Wilf and the Doctor return.**


End file.
